It's no Longer Coffey Time

Dan Coffey's Anchorage

Well if you had not seen the mayoral election results from this Tuesday, it's not over yet. With Ethan Berkowitz and Amy Demboski pulling away from the rest of the pack with the most votes, the two will face each other in a Cinco de Mayo election to see who gets to be Anchorage's next mayor. What is worth noting, however, and this is the reason why I even make a post about this topic on a non-political blog, is what happened to Dan Coffey. Berkowitz and Andrew Halcro got into the race in January this year. Demboski declared her candidacy last August. And Mr. Coffey? He started campaigning in October... of 2013! Dan Coffey's campaign was as long as many presidential campaigns. Even the race for governor isn't this long. And like a presidential campaign, Coffey did indeed rack up quite a bit of dough from his relentless fundraising drive. In all, his war chest collected over $300,000, far outpacing any of the candidates. Finally, after one year and six months, it was election night. Coffey was looking giddy as he unexpectedly inserted  himself in a Channel 2 live shot Tuesday afternoon at a busy intersection crowded with sign wavers. But it is safe to say the happiness soon wore off as the election tally that night revealed him to finish... in last place (among the main contenders). Dan Coffey was Mayor Dan Sullivan's hand-picked successor to the municipal throne. What happened?

And it is this relationship between the mayor and Dan Coffey that makes AnchorageJoop jubilant in his election night implosion. You may remember that not long after Sullivan took the mayors office in the late 2000s, he hired his old buddy Dan Coffey to review the newly rewritten Title 21 codes. With Title 21, the city's design and building review standards, having just gone through a decade-long review in which developers and the general public had their feedback taken into account, the newly minted code was thought to finally be completed. It was a compromise between developers who fought against added regulations and the people of the city who fought against loosening regulations that would adversely affect their way of life. But with Mayor Begich gone and the conservative Sullivan in, Coffey was unexpectedly hired as an outside consultant to review and revise the newly completed Title 21. Needless to say, a number of codes and standards, which had already gone through a long and exhausting review process, were quickly nixed by Coffey. And not surprisingly, Coffey swung in favor of developers. Among the major changes made was Coffey's eradication of the designated density zones. So now, instead of having high-rise buildings only in midtown and downtown, you can now have a 25-story high-rise go up next to your house in south Anchorage. In addition, sidewalks no longer have to be on both sides of the street, thanks to Coffey's backroom revisionism. Ivan Moore captured the spirit of the frustration at the time with his column Bubba's Anchorage or yours?

Of course, this is just one of numerous other complaints that I and many others have had toward Mr. Coffey. As a man of low morals, Dan Coffey voted against the anti-discrimination ordinance, just as his master, Dan Sullivan, had wanted. Having spent years leading CHARR, a restaurant and bar industry group, it was certain that he would, as mayor, continue to protect corrupt bar owners and fight new regulations that promote public safety as he did when leading the corrupt CHARR. And let's not get started on the recorded phone call conversation in which Coffey talks about paying assembly members to vote a certain way. It was this phone conversation, recorded thanks to Dan Coffey's butt-dialing into the late Allen Tesche's answering machine, that is believed to be the biggest factor in his loss.

With this chapter in Anchorage history appearing to come to an end, what pleases me most is that even in the afterlife, Allen Tesche can still take down Coffey. Here's to you, Assemblyman Tesche.

Title 21 Effects on Anchorage

Near Arctic & 36th Avenue.

For those following the process that Title 21 is going through with the Municipal Planning and Zoning Commission, you have every right to feel despair and hopeless. I know I do. 2012 marks ten frickin' years since the Title 21 rewrite initially got underway. And the goals and ideals outlined have since been filtered out, diminished, and in some cases outright eradicated. I understand that there must be compromise and was fine with the way Title 21 looked like by 2010, even with some of the goals and ideals gone. It was a long process, but in the end, the public got what it want, as did business. Since then, however, Title 21 has again been put through scrutiny, this time from the idiotic and cold-hearted Dan Coffey (I call him cold-hearted for what he said of the late Allen Tesche at a tea-bagger rally some time ago). Coffey's recommendations were so outrageous that most of them didn't even get the rubber stamp of approval from his good buddy, Mayor Sullivan. The recommendations that did survive, however, have gone on to be reviewed with seemingly no opposition from the planning and zoning commission. And to top it, the commission has thrown its own weight onto the rewrite, as the panel of members discussed eliminating the requirement of sidewalk access to commercial buildings, along with eliminating the requirement that sidewalks be on both sides of Anchorage streets. I don't follow the process terribly closely, so I don't know if these latest proposals are now set in stone or not. From what I understand, mixed-use districts have definitely been eliminated.

Anyways, I had meant to write just a brief blurb as a lead in to this editorial published in Sundays ADN, which is written by two real estate brokers concerning the commission's latest recommendations for Title 21. The co-authors end their editorial pondering whether future generations will be able to thank us for making Anchorage the way we thought it could be. I can tell you that nobody thanks the planners who ran Anchorage during the last 50 years. Will we be able to correct this? With Anchorage running out of land to expand on, the ad hoc mindset we have toward development will have to shift gears toward redeveloping what we have now. We are at a pivotal moment for this almost 100-year-old city, and we can't afford to mess it up.

Mountain View's comeback

Just thought I'd throw out that there is an article on this months Alaska Journal of Commerce on the resurgance of the Mountain View neighborhood in Northeast Anchorage. With new houses, mixed-use buildings, a remodeled and reopened library, a new Clark Middle School and such, it's a given that a piece about the neighborhood would surface in the local media. Of course you can also head over to the Mountain View Forum blog for more on this historic neighborhood, wink wink.

[edit] --just noticed that there's also an op-ed written by Andrew Spinelli (president of the Home Builders Association, and presumeably president of Spinell Homes) on why he's not thrilled about Title 21 codes related to home building (surprise!). I'll go ahead and link this as well for those inclined to read it.

Seriously Dan? You're going to go there?

Before I get into it, it should be explained that Dan Coffey, the former Assembly member who was hired by Dan Sullivan to mutilate the democratically formed Title 21 codes, is like the uncle at the table during the holidays who makes the rest of the family cringe whenever he says something. Now I'm not talking politically incorrect tirade or anything on that level (though those too), rather everything can be boiled down to a simplistic solution regardless of whether you're an expert or not as far as he's concerned. The Anchorage School District needs more funding, Dans response: when I was a kid, we went to school in a quonset hut, and we came out fine (paraphrasing for I don't remember his exact words in both quotes). Does mixed-use work? Dan said something along the lines of: the only mixed-use building I see in town has no businesses in the ground floor. He was referring to the newish mixed-use building in Mountain View which actually does have businesses occupying the ground level including a GCI Store opening soon. But never mind that. Dan Coffey says he see's no businesses in the ground floor, therefore it's official: mixed-use doesn't work! All has been settled.

After the Anchorage Press published Ivan Moore's column that was critical about Coffey's developer friendly revisioning of Title 21 a few months ago, the Press kindly gave Dan the opportunity to have a response. Having read it, I thought 'hey, maybe Coffey does know what he's doing'. The credentials and experience related toward planning and zoning that he lists did seem more than adequate. But it turns out I should've known better. As if some of his proposed changes made public earlier this week weren't outrageous, he revives the Uncle Dan character I had long known as he throws the McCarthy Card at us. That's right. Responding to an interview question, Coffey states: "I don't believe central planning works. It didn't work for the USSR and it probably won't work very well for us". That one I can tell you did not need paraphrasing. I remember saying in an earlier post a year or two ago that Anchorage's development patterns were stuck in a 1950s mindset... I guess we now know whose mindset that is. All his credibility related to planning and zoning just went down the drain. It was thanks to Ivan Moore's latest column that this Coffeyism had surfaced. But indeed I really would like to thank Ivan Moore for giving attention to the Title 21 issue over the past few months. It's not a sexy issue that would grab the attention of readers, and I know they have papers to sell.. err.. to give away.

But I can't help but to go with Coffey's thinking here. Taking it to its logical conclusions, the Haussmann Plan that restructured Paris must have been communist. The same goes with the Commissioners Plans of 1811 for Manhattan. Bleeding red, they are. And that must surely explain why the world absolutely shuns the urban horror show that is Paris while embracing a good ole red white and blue freedom loving city like Houston which really has no zoning regulations to speak of (can you tell?). Even the early planners of Anchorage had to have been communist what with their pinko street grid that have letter streets running north and south and numbered streets east and west. Interesting tidbit: was actually the Alaska Railroad that laid out the grid. Guess that explains them being state owned, no?

Title 21 revisions made public

Yesterday afternoon Mayor Sullivan made available the proposed revisions for the Title 21 land use code for all to see on the muni's website along with the decision made by the city on each of Coffey's proposals. A memorandum that summarizes the major proposed changes and their fate can be found on this PDF. If you wanna go hardcore, you can knock yourself out with the full 600 page Title 21 code as well. One thing I learned from the list of proposed revisions: turns out Dan Sullivan isn't that bad after all... not when compared to Dan Coffey! From my count (and don't take my word for it as I skimmed a bit), it appears that 21 of the 37 major proposals by Coffey had been rejected by the mayors office or only partly accepted. The major changes that the city did take up from Coffey include the elimination of two Midtown districts that would be zoned for mixed-use, the elimination of height limits for high rise buildings going up in Midtown, the elimination of diversified design standards for single family homes which would have prevented the sterile aesthetic look of cookie cutter subdivisions, and the elimination of requirements from developers to take up responsibility of nearby roads and drainage which may be effected by the addition of several new residences using such infrastructure (see the disaster that is Discovery Homes).

But it could have been much worse. Among Coffey's failed proposals were to reduce the Urban Design Commission's review authority to just one function: trail projects (!!!). Another proposal would have seen Title 21 codes take precedent over the Anchorage Comprehensive Plan in the event of code conflict. Similar to the first one, Coffey also proposed shortening (or "streamlining") the review process of streets and trails by reducing review practices currently used by the Municipality. While Coffey had wanted all mixed-use districts eliminated, the city has chosen to keep three but make mixed-use optional rather than required of developers. Developers who choose to build mixed-use in these areas will be given a re-zone fee waiver along with a faster approval process and administrative assistance. "The consultant" had also wanted to allow all types of telecommunication towers in residential areas though the memo claims that there was a misunderstanding and that it was not Coffey's intention to alter this. Other amendments that failed are as follows: "Reducing requirements for pedestrian connections and facilities" (only cul-de-sacs will lose the requirements, but who cares, they're cul-de-sacs), "Deletion of dumpster screening amortization", and "Deletion of townhouse landscaping standards" (only vertical curbs have been deleted), among others.

In the end, I'm kind of mixed. Particularly I'm kind of mixed on the eradication of height limits for Midtown -- but I'll go into that in another post. I am however satisfied that incentives will be provided for mixed-use buildings in the three areas that survived the cut while pedestrian connectivity has been spared along with the rest of the bulk of Title 21. The reduction of landscaping, which we all saw coming, is something that I wouldn't lose sleep over personally as I've never been to crazy for it. I have barely even gotten around to reading the existing Title 21, so I'll have to do more of that before getting a full scope of what is to come. For now, all I can say is thank goodness the other Dan is not mayor.

Re: Bubba's Anchorage or yours?

I've been itchin' to update the blog for the past month after a year long absence, but it was this piece from Ivan Moore on this weeks Press that motivated me enough to get back to posting. With the completed Title 21 codes being "edited" in a backroom by former Assembly member Dan Coffey with the help of business interests on the Muni's dime, it's nice to see many people outraged over what's happening. I wouldn't have expected this considering the ultra exciting and exhilarating world that is municiple zoning and building codes... but citizens are aware and the Anchorage Press in particular has had its fingers on the pulse for the past few weeks. This weeks Ivan Moore column was especially direct:

[...] "I want a vibrant, modern downtown with great hotels, cool shops and pedestrian-friendly walking areas, with all the sleazy, decrepit stuff gone (the Avenue Bar especially). I want to be able to walk there, drive there, bike there or bus there and even in the dead of winter be able to get around easily without slipping over or having to hike over snow berms". [...]

Ignore the bit about the Avenue Bar... that's just personal tit for tat as he and the owner of the Avenue Bar are not best buddies... it's not a sleazy place btw. Also to the mayor's credit, he did introduce the idea of having People Mover buses operate with the same light changing tech as found in emergency vehicles so as to speed up bus service and provide further incentive for riders.

ADN editorial on Anchorage's new Title 21 codes

The staff at the Anchorage Daily News just recently published an editorial in which the newspaper takes the side of city planners and looks forward to the implementations of the Title 21 Rewrite which is in the homestretch of having its remaining sections approved by the Anchorage Assembly. For those still not in the know, Title 21, which covers zoning and planning, was ordered by the Anchorage 2020 Comprehensive Plan to be rewritten after decades of no alterations so as to address the need for alternative transportation, traffic calming, and having more sustainable use of land for the increasingly shrinking amount of available land in the Anchorage Bowl. Changes included in the rewrite of Title 21 range from small things such as having commercial properties with entrances accessible from the sidewalk, to designating Downtown and Midtown as hubs for which commercial and residential should be intermixed to give people greater freedom from having to rely on their car to make their errands or go to work. By the way, I'll always be sure update the joop and let readers know in advance whenever a public Title 21 Rewrite meeting is taking place later in the week. Meanwhile, check out the editorial:

ADN editorial on Title 21

Title 21 public discussion

This Thursday at noon the Muni will be hosting a brown bag discussion on the Title 21 Rewrite that is open for all who are interested. From the email:

"This is an opportunity to ask questions and learn about Anchorage’s recommended new off-street parking regulations relative to the other site development provisions in Title 21 that are now going forward to the municipal Planning & Zoning Commission for deliberation and action. The brown bag agenda includes a 20-minute presentation and 30 minutes for dialogue, Q and A. Participants will get an overview and have opportunities to ask questions about topics such as:

* How the required number of parking spaces is (and is not) changing;
* Flexible parking standards that recognize different project locations and characteristics;
* How the number of spaces affects user convenience, development costs, location, and Anchorage 2020 policies;
* Balancing quality and quantity: parking space dimensions, landscaping, and lighting; and
* Balancing trip choice: placement of buildings near sidewalks; maintaining driver convenience; required walkways; bicycle parking; share-a-ride and transit"

"The Brown Bag will be from 12 noon to 1 p.m. in the Planning and Development Center's Training Room, 4700 Elmore Road, Anchorage".

For those not in the know, Title 21 is the Municipalities guide that deals with planning and land use codes. It's been 400 years since it was last updated, but with the city adopting the Anchorage 2020 Comprehensive Plan back in 2001, a rewrite of Title 21 is needed in order to carry out what Anchorage 2020 calls for. This includes greater pedestrian friendliness, alternative uses of transportation, and more sustainable use of land. To respond to this, Title 21 is being rewritten with codes that include zoning changes, restrictions on surface parking lots, financial benefits for developers of mixed-use projects, and other new standards. The large stack of papers that is Title 21 is to be reviewed and possibly amended chapter by chapter by the Anchorage Assembly. Several chapters have already been passed, and if I'm correct, there's only a small amount left.

As you can see, I provided a link to the Muni's page on Title 21, but consider yourself warned! Any attempt to read every document relating to Title 21 without getting off your chair is certain to create severe blood circulation problems. If you must read it all, please take breaks and stretch every once in a while.